


The Inspiration Behind the Apple

by DyedViolet



Series: Seven Strangers and their Relevant Activities [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Statement Fic, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 14:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20341360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyedViolet/pseuds/DyedViolet
Summary: Statement #0183107 of Peter Wayne, regarding his kidnapping by seven anatomy students.





	The Inspiration Behind the Apple

“Statement #0183107 of Peter Wayne, regarding his kidnapping in early 2016. Statement recorded directly from subject. Mr. Wayne, if you would?”

“Oh, it was dreadful, they tied me up, gagged me–they must’ve blindfolded me at some point, I can’t remember a single one of their faces–I still have the scars, would that be good evidence? I have the scars as evidence, and–”

“From the beginning, please,” Johnathan cuts him off with a clipped tone and a glare. Peter shrivels under it.

“Right, right–must be hard to make sense of a story for the records if it starts in the middle, huh? How many do you have like that?”

“None. Hardly any ta–given in person, though many start with needless rambling. I’d like to skip that part.”

“Ah, right, of course–the start of it, where would that be? I’ll start with walking home that night. I was on my way home, walking the handful of blocks between my normal office job and average London apartment–I can’t stress enough that I'm a perfectly average person. No excessively wealthy relatives, no works of genius to boast of, no contact with any sort of underbelly operations. There can’t have been any reason for someone so average to have been kidnapped as I was–the only way would be for it to have been a random picking.

"As I was walking, a hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun around. There was a man and woman standing there, no real distinguishing features. The woman said, "Come with us. We need to study." I was utterly perplexed. "Study what?" I asked. "Follow us," the man said, not providing any explanation whatsoever. At that point, I still had no clue what was in store for me. I would've run away if I had. What I did do was frown at the both of them and ask, "Would it kill you to use some manners?" Instead of answering, they glanced at each other, I think with confusion. "Would it?" one asked, while the other asked, "What are manners?" Looking back I can't believe it, but by then I was walking alongside them like we were all pals headed to the pub together! They were just–they were far too normal. Despite the words coming out of their mouths. In the moment, though, I was just bemused, and offended, that they didn't seem to know common decency. "Manners," I explained with agitation, "are the groundwork for any civilized society. They're the rules on which interactions are built, and a necessity for human interaction." They went silent for a while, pondering my words, and we kept walking. The man eventually spoke up, and said, "Humans need manners?" "Yes," I replied, "every person in the world needs manners. We'd get nowhere without them!" 

"Then things started getting… weird. Creepy. "Teach us," the woman said, without any sort of inflection that would differentiate a request from a demand. "Show us what manners are. Where they are." "Manners don't have a location!" I said. They ignored me. "Teach us," they said. We came upon an old house–Ha! I think it was just a block or two off from my own apartment, just a slight bit in the wrong direction. The woman went up the stairs of the porch, opened the door, and called someone. Two more people appeared, and I can't recall how anyone involved looked–they were all too similar in their normality–but I remember these two were especially similar–the woman addressed them both with P names, I remember thinking they must've been twins. But what caught my notice about the two figures standing silhouetted in the yellow light of their entry hall was that, between them, they were holding a long length of thick rope. I tried to bolt, but the man was standing behind me, trapping me on their narrow porch and ushering me inside. The twins grabbed me, scooped me up like a sack of potatoes–they were stronger than they looked–and tied my arms to my sides. I tried to scream, to struggle, to _ escape _, but they shoved a rag in my mouth and gagged me. The door squeaked on its hinges as it shut.

"They shoved me off into some backroom with a counter. It could have been specifically designed for this as easily as it could have been an understocked and modified kitchen. They plopped me on the table, pushed me so my back was flush against the cold hardtop, and strapped me legs down with these leather straps they had–I was a proper little lab experiment, then, straight out of Frankenstein with less lightning and graverobbing. They undid the rope just long enough to strip me, taking away what little sense of security I had, and strapped down my arms much the same way. And then they got to work. They–they didn't bother cutting me open, they just–just reached in, pushed the skin and fat to either side, leaving the muscle exposed. It hung off me like putty, my own flesh-and the way it felt! It wasn't stabbing, or sharp, or anything that would match with what I saw happening to me; it was more of an ache–like a really bad massage, but also like hitting your funny bone. And it didn't hurt nearly as much as you'd expect. I still screamed, though, of course I would, anyone would in that situation. They paid my muffled horror no mind. With my outer flesh out of the way, they pushed the muscle aside–I can't recall their expressions ever changing, but you could tell that this is what they were waiting for, what they were excited about. My organs were exposed. I was like that all night, and I don't know how far into the day. They had some sort of rotation set up, taking turns with me like oddly well-behaved children sharing a plaything. There were the man and woman from before, and the twins, but them and their friends seem to blur together in my mind, could have been anywhere between five to nine of them–Ha! Nine to five, do you get it? Nine to five of them pluck up a nine-to-fiver like me–”

“Please,” Johnathan snaps, “focus on the story.” 

"Right. Sorry." Johnathan pinches the bridge of his nose. Peter reminds him all too much of Martin, from earlier days.

"Anyways. They each wanted to take a look at my organs. They poked, they prodded, they measured. I had thought I'd given up on screaming by that point, but the first time one of them pulled one out, I shrieked in terror and panic, sure I was about to die. My… My lung was still breathing in their hand, softly expanding and deflating. I felt the slightest bit winded–not as much as it could have been, seeing as I still had one lung in me. Whoever it was stared at it for a long, long while, entranced. Then, they took a deep, shuddering breath, and they put it back. I sucked in a lungful of air–twice what I had before, ey?–and it was remarkable how normal that breath felt. I realized whatever sick experiment they were using me for wasn't going to kill me, and I just decided to… let it happen. If they wanted to kill me when they were done, I could panic then, but for the moment, it would do me no good. They pulled out all sorts of squishy things from me, some which I couldn't even name–Only a doctor could, I wager. There were only two other organs that I could feel the absence of: My stomach, which just took away the hunger that grew the longer I was there without a bite to eat, and my heart, the worst one to be without. When they took it out, I got a head rush like when you stand too fast. It pulsed in their hand, beating without a drop of blood in it, and my whole body got pins and needles. Spots would start to swim in my vision, and just before I thought I'd pass out, they'd put it back. I don't think I could have handled that too many times in a row, but luckily–as lucky as one can get in that situation–they seemed much more interested in what I think was my liver.

"I spent hours like that, at their mercy, just letting them toy with me. My best guess, judging by the sunlight coming through the room's narrow window, was that noon had come and gone when there was a knock at the door. A woman went to answer it–different from the one on the street, as best I could tell–and I thought that this was my chance for rescue. I took in a deep breath, as much air as my recently returned lungs could hold, and I screamed. Nobody came. The door shut shortly afterwards, the woman returned, and she said, "Teacher came to visit." Suddenly I was glad I had only screamed once. Anything that was teaching these people was bound to be far more horrible than I could bear.

"What did he say about the liver?" one of them asked. "Nothing," replied the woman, "he seemed upset."

"He doesn't teach us how to interact with humans."

"He wants us to find out on our own, he's a good teacher."

"Then how are we meant to find out?" At that, one of them turned to me, and one by one, their gazes fell upon me, as burningly curious as children and yet as ravenous as wolves. "He mentioned something called manners.” 

"What can we learn from him? He's not a doctor."

"He knows manners." Then, all together, they said, “Tells us about manners."

"What else was I to do? This was the first card they put in my hand, I had no choice but to play it. So I started telling them about please and thank you like you would a group of preschoolers. And they seemed completely enraptured! One even started writing in a notebook, I believe. As long as they kept listening, I kept talking. I blabbered on about how to exchange pleasantries, how to make small talk, and, well, they all looked so much like average college kids that I branched off into networking and party manners, how to suck up a bit to those above you. I’ll tell you this, if I have one talent, it’s that. I got ‘round to talking about gift baskets, and one of the boys spoke up, asking, “How do you give a gift?”

“It all depends on who you’re giving it to,” I told them. “You have to consider what they like, what connects the two of you. Professional gifts should be more impersonal, just something to buy off the shelf. A more personal gift can be handmade as an expression of appreciation to the person you give it to.” I confess, by that point I had gotten a bit too comfortable in their lair. As I rambled on, one of the girls pulled out a laptop from a drawer and started typing.

"The computer says "Give teacher an apple," she declared. The others gathered round her, and I was able to lean over and catch a glimpse at the screen. She had the search bar open, looking at an autocomplete result from her typed query of "give teacher." They turned to me, and I stuttered out some sort of affirmation for them. They all nodded, and one said, “Thank you for teaching us manners. We need to plan now.” She undid my restraints, and I hurried out of there as quick as I was able. I’ve walked down my road again and again, trying to find the house they took me to so I can report it properly to the police, but I never manage to find it.”

“...Is that all?” John asks.

“That’s all for my statement. I can still show you my scars, if you like.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. Thank you for your time, Mr. Way–”

“They’re quite interesting, just like carpet burn! If you’ll just give me a moment.”

“No, that’s–that’s quite alright, I don’t need to see–” Click. 

* * *

"It appears now that we know why the seven students went out of their way to give Dr. Lionel that… _ gift _. Considering the differences in behavior, I’m inclined to believe that Max Mustermann was a similar yet distinct entity from Erika and her fellow students. After the Unknowing, I would be content to believe that the students will no longer be of any concern, but… They don’t quite match the circus theme. It’s possible that they are like Jared Hopworth, avatars with no interest in their master’s ritual. In that vein, I suppose I should expect them to appear again, mildly terrorizing other–I hesitate to call them people, but it seems close enough for now. It's what they seem to be trying to be.

"End recording."


End file.
